Spy death police play waiting game

Scotland Yard detectives again failed to meet a crucial witness in the Alexander Litvinenko murder inquiry, amid claims that both he and another key figure had radiation poisoning.

Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer, was supposed to have met the British officers investigating Mr Litvinenko's poisoning this week, but that meeting has been postponed several times.

He and his business associate Dmitry Kovtun, who together attended a meeting with the former spy at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, are both undergoing medical checks in Russia.

One Russian news agency quoted medical sources as saying that checks on Mr Lugovoi had shown that some of his organs had malfunctioned, apparently as a result of a radioactive substance.

Mr Lugovoi himself was later reported to have said that he was feeling "normal". His lawyer said his condition was not an obstacle to his interrogation and that he did not know why the questioning had been delayed again.

Meanwhile, uncertainty continued to surround the condition of Mr Kovtun. After claims that he had slipped into a coma following questioning by detectives, it was then reported that he had regained consciousness but that he was in a serious condition with radiation damage to his intestines and kidneys.

However, Mr Lugovoi's lawyer, Andrei Romashov, said Mr Kovtun's condition was "the same" as it was before the meeting and claimed the report was "aimed at creating a negative atmosphere around this case".

A team of nine Scotland Yard counter-terrorism detectives is in Russia to investigate Mr Litvinenko's poisoning in London last month with the deadly radioactive element polonium-210.

A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said there was no time limit on their mission, but declined to reveal details of who they would be meeting and when.

The meeting between Mr Litvinenko, Mr Lugovoi, Mr Kovtun and a fourth man, Vyacheslav Sokolenko, at the Millennium Hotel appears increasingly to be the focus of the inquiry.